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Last month we shared with you our team’s vision — unhindered disciple-making — and new mission statement: “to be a catalyst of God’s Kingdom Expansion in Kenya and the world through our own actions and partnerships with CCC and others.”(“CCC” is the Community Christian Churches with whom we partner — these congregations now number well over 200.) Then we listed the first four of our eight key values which provide the foundation for our mission strategies — Christ-centered, Prayer-powered, Empowerment of nationals, Holistic Ministries. Our other key values are Partnership, Church-focused, Community, and Culturally Appropriate.

To read more, including an update on our Community Christian Bible Training Institute (CCBTI) — now expanded to three campuses! — here is a pdf copy of June’s newsletter.

What’s it like to be missionary in Africa? Our days revolve around teaching national Christians and our six children, whom we (mostly Ruth) homeschool. To read more, visit today’s post on CMF’s blog, which was written by Ruth.

UPDATE (1 January 2019): As we are continuing with the same work, but are now with affiliated with MissionStream, we have archived a PDF copy of the blog here.

Christ’s Kingdom in Kenya is continuing to expand and deepen in so many exciting ways! … Since our last newsletter, we have witnessed baptisms, heard of many other baptisms and new church plants by our national co-workers, planted two new branches of our Community Christian Bible Training Institute (CCBTI), and have our Discipleship Training Institute (DTI) on track to have two sessions this year instead of just one.

Our missionary team has grown during this term — we are now twelve adults and twelve children. As part of this time of growth, we have been working on developing a new vision and strategy. Our team vision is simple — unhindered disciple-making. To read more, including about these pictures, here is a pdf version of our latest newsletter.

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For a copy of the newsletter with better image resolution for printing, drop us a line.

Branding is important. This is why Madison Avenue (the global center of the advertising industry in New York City) is a center of influence and of wealth. This is why the hosting television network charges millions of dollars for a thirty second commercial during the Super Bowl (the championship game of professional american football). A cowboy in America’s Old West — or a Maasai olchekut even today — could identify the owner of the herd with a mere at a glance at a cow’s branding mark.

(Note: the Maa word olchekut is usually translated as “shepherd” but is used of cowherds and goatherds as well.)

Branding can work for weal or for woe. If a Maasai teen-aged boy so much as flinches when he is circumcised, he is branded as a coward for the rest of his life. In the 1985 film Back to the Future, George McFly suffered the effects his whole life of having been branded as a weakling as a youth, until his son Marty altered the present by changing the past. Currently nearly half of Americans are horrified at the prospect of their country being branded as “Trump Nation.” Yet nearly half of Americans were terrified at the possibility of their country being branded by the “progressivism” of another Clinton presidential administration. Branding matters.

Countries in Africa (including Kenya) are often branded as backwards, undeveloped, and primitive. This is often done by NGOs and even by missions agencies as they are seeking financial support for various developmental projects. Sadly, this branding often first creates and then perpetuates a cycle of dependency. But this is often done by comparing the poorest of those in the slums with those comfortably middle-class (economically speaking) from suburbs and cities in the West.

Many of you have seen pictures of endemic poverty in African slums in Nairobi (Kenya), Lagos (Nigeria), or Johannesburg (South Africa) and been told “this is Africa.” Others have seen the perpetual corruption and impunity of dictators like Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and been told “this is Africa.” Those of you at least our age remember the popular song “We Are the World” and pictures of emaciated Ethiopian children with the swollen bellies of starvation and think “this is Africa.” Still others hear “Africa” and think only of stories of genocide (e.g., Rwanda in 1994), perpetual civil wars (e.g., Democratic Republic of the Congo, DRC; formerly called Zaïre), Boko Haram’s atrocities against christians (mostly in Nigeria), social unrest and violent atrocities after a contested election (e.g., here in Kenya after the December 2007 election), or even just of “zoo animals.”

But how many Americans would like the USA to be characterized, branded, only by images of Old West gunfighters, or urban rioters, or the terrible morals in so many Hollywood movies, or the ostentatious conspicuous consumption of wealthy celebrities, or the gruesome practices of abortionist Kermit Gosnell, or by the divisiveness of “the other side” during the 2016 elections? Most Americans would protest, “that is not my America.” And so for those of you who do not live in Africa, we invite you to take a second look with new eyes at the various countries of this continent.

It is as important to celebrate glorious success as it is to bring needs to light. So when we host visitors here in Kenya, we want them to see the rich texture and vibrancy of Kenyan life. We’ll visit a church in the Kibera slum, talk with successful Nairobi entrepreneurs and artisans, swing by a world-class Nairobi shopping mall, sit with small-town church members in their large stone church building, and drink tea in a remotely rural Maasai hut.

Here is one example of positive branding for Kenya. It’s a music video / commercial for Safaricom, the largest telecom and micro-finance service provider in East Africa. It is a celebration of Kenyan life, culture, and people. Like the best advertising, it is not pushing a product so much as celebrating a vision for life. I invite you to watch and listen to this short video (less than two minutes). The lyrics (in kiSwahili) and translation (in English) follow below. This is the Kenya we know and love. These are the Kenyans with whom we partner. Yes, there is still need, which this branding doesn’t depict. But in this season of America’s Thanksgiving, celebrate with us the greatness of Kenya’s people.

Ungaana (ungaana), Pendana (pendana)….. Let’s unite together (let’s unite),….. Let’s love each other (let’s love)Tumeungana twaonekana, ….. We have united, we have seen thatTuko huru tuko sawa, ….. We are free, we are equal

An update of the WordPress site architecture was causing all of the embedded videos we have posted to display only the now archaic and out-dated code instead of the actual videos. This has now been corrected, both on the video pages and in various posts.

Of special note are two new Maasai worship songs recently posted: one sung by the students of my recent CCBTI class and one written during this year’s DTI session. So if you haven’t seen those yet, we invite you to take a look.

Community Christian Bible Training Institute (CCBTI) has two new campuses. In addition to Turkana Bible Training Institute (TBTI) in Lodwar, we have successfully opened two new branches serving the Maasai churches. The Ewaso Ng’iro campus, in Narok County, opened classes in August 2016 with six students. In September the campus in Nga’tataek, in Kajiado County, offered its first class with 17 pastors attending.

I taught our Enkinosata Ororei le Nkai (“Eating the Word of God”) class at Ewaso Ng’iro in October. Here’s a two minute video of a worship chorus, in Maa, which I composed during the class:

Greetings from Kenya!

It is a wonderful privilege to serve as a co-minister of reconciliation of Christ Jesus our Lord and friend. We would love to hear what God is doing through and around you in the place God has you. To read a sample of a few of things God is doing through and around us in Kenya and to see a few pictures, here is a pdf copy of our latest newsletter. If you are on our postal mailing list, you should receive a hard-copy soon.

The parable of the goat

We often emphasize the giving of tithes and offerings and neglect the broader and deeper aspects of total Christian stewardship.

Christian stewardship is like a goat. Generous giving (often expressed in tithes and offerings) is the skin of the goat. The only way to have a large, healthy goat skin is to have a full-grown healthy goat. If the goat-skin is too small, or full of holes, that is a clear indication either that the goat is still immature or that it is malnourished or sick. When it seems that the giving of tithes and offerings is too little to meet the needs of the congregation, that is a clear sign that the “goat” of stewardship needs some attention. …

While we spent a week earlier this month in the bush with our Discipleship Training Institute, I started singing the chorus “Holiness, Holiness is what I long for …”, except I sang it in Maa and taught to the DTI students and our dear friends Francis Yenko (the DTI Director) and Moses Mashipei (the DTI Assistant Director). It made for great campfire music, along with the song of the night-time grazing zebra, under the Southern Cross.

One of our favorite ministry opportunities has always been time spent with our DTS (Discipleship Training School). In order to avoid confusion with the similar ministries of YWAM (Youth With A Mission) that use the same name, we just changed the name to Discipleship Training Institute (DTI).

We’ve just spent a week out in the bush with the DTI. Ruth has written a delightful blog post that touches on our time there. And check back here later for another update.